MMA: Visalia’s Ruiz captures 559 Fights championship

Manny Ruiz locks in a rear-naked choke against Raphael Hernandez to win the 559 Fights flyweight championship on Saturday at Recreation Park in Visalia.(Photo by Juan Villa)

By Damian Marquez

dmarquez@visaliatimesdelta.com

Win or lose, Manny “The Beast” Ruiz’s dream was to fight for a championship.

He got the opportunity to fight for the 559 Fights amateur mixed martial arts flyweight title Saturday night at Recreation Park in Visalia.

And the Visalia fighter made the most of that chance.

Ruiz locked in a rear-naked choke to force Bakersfield fighter Raphael Hernandez to tap out 2 minutes, 37 seconds into the second round to become the first 559 Fights flyweight champion.

“It’s a dream come true,” Ruiz said. “This is all I wanted. I wanted to fight for a title. If I won or lost, I just wanted to fight for the title. Winning is obviously the better way to go, and I got it.”

Now that Ruiz won his championship, he can see the end of his MMA career coming. He said he has no desire to be a professional fighter.

“One more fight. I want to defend my belt one time,” Ruiz said. “This is just a hobby. I do this for fun. These guys, they want to go pro. I don’t want too. I’ll be their obstacle. I’ll be their competition.

Fight fans may be disappointed to hear that Ruiz doesn’t want to continue fighting. He has proven to be an exciting fighter, taking on all comers, regardless of the situation.

He went into Saturday’s fight with a shoulder injury that limited the amount of time he spent in the gym. Ruiz said he was hurt while cutting down a tree, which landed on his right shoulder. He also hurt his leg while trying to make up for lost time in the gym.

“Honestly, I didn’t train a lot,” Ruiz said. “But when I did train, I went hard. I went beast, I went hard.”

The amount of time training didn’t matter to Ruiz. He said he was ready to compete and nothing was going to stop him from fighting for the championship.

“You have to have that killer instinct. “You have to have that faith and that heart. You have to have that passion to fight.”

Manny Ruiz

Ruiz showed that heart and passion as he improved to 5-0-1 in his amateur career.

In other action:

Bakersfield’s Marcel Cyprian dominated Eric Diaz for three rounds to earn a unanimous decision victory. Diaz pushed Cyprian up against the cage, looking for a takedown but could not get it. Cyprian did a lot of damage from up against the cage to earn the victory.

Bakersfield’s Holt Felkins displayed a very slick ground game in his fight against Visalia’s Devon Chavez. Both fighters displayed some excellent grappling skills, but it was Felkins who had an answer for every one of Chavez’s moves. With just nine seconds remaining in the first round, Felkins locked in an armbar submission, forcing Chavez to tap out.

In the only women’s fight of the night, Veronica Luna made quick work of Elisabeth Crouch, winning via first-round technical knockout.

Farmersville’s Jeffrey Lewis made his debut in what could have been the fight of the night against Porterville’s Aaron Ziegler. In a back-and-forth, three-round battle, Lewis got the better of Ziegler, winning via technical knockout. Lewis finished the fight with vicious ground and pound, forcing the referee to step in and stop the fight.

Exeter’s Aaron Partin took his fight to the ground and the strategy paid off. Partin worked himself into the full mount position and defeated Michael Runningwind with a first-round technical knockout.

Chris Huerta wasted very little time in defeating Fabian Luevano. Huerta came out swinging and overwhelmed Luevano to earn the first-round technical knockout victory.

In a last-minute addition to the fight card, Porterville’s Jeff Flowers outlasted Farmersville’s David Marsical to win via unanimous decision. Mariscal landed a couple big punches, including a right cross that sent Flowers’ mouth guard flying. Flowers recovered and did just enough on the ground to warrant the decision victory.